Laptop Express LLC Ruined Our Wedding and Breached Our Contract Cincinnati, Ohio

Dear Potential Laptop Express Customer:

I know this is long, but please read it.  The internet is littered with similar complaints against this company.  Note that it has a Glenway and Colerain location, both of which are awful.

In or around mid December 2012, my then-fiance and I brought my Dell Inspiron laptop, which had stopped booting up, to Laptop Express to be fixed.  We were told by the sole employee at their Glenway location that it would take one week and would cost $316, which we paid up front.  There was critical data on the laptop in an Excel spreadsheet  with all of the RSVPs and addresses for our wedding on January 12, 2013, as well as a Word file keeping track of the gifts we had received at my two wedding showers in October and November.

We desperately needed the data in order to get a head count for the caterer as well as send thank you cards.  We trusted this business to do what it promised and timely extract our data, but what followed was a nightmare of epic (and sleazy) proportions.

After a week, we were told that the laptop was not finished because of a hardware problem.  We were told that they would have to order a new part, so we agreed and waited.  From then on, we started dealing with
the owner of the store who does not display any emotion nor does he speak or acknowledge your existence as a customer.  Over the course of the next three months (until yesterday) we were told that the laptop was still being repaired.  We visited the store numerous times, only to see the laptop in pieces on the counter.

The owner did not apologize or offer a satisfactory explanation for breaching our contract.  He knew that we needed that data for our wedding but did not display any indication that he cared whatsoever.  When I went to the store before the wedding to tell him that the data was crucial and to check on the status of the laptop, he vaguely said, without looking at me, that I had to "do what I had to do," which I think meant get through the wedding without the data.  Again, no apology or acknowledgment that he was ruining our wedding and was in breach of the contract, which stated that it would be fixed in one week.  And they had our money upfront.

Weeks passed and we called the owner numerous times in the store and on his cell phone (which was given to us in a panic by the Glenway employee to make us go away) only to be told that there was another problem and we'd have to wait.  At one point, the owner's wife lied to us and told us the laptop was at their Glenway location.  I drove 30 minutes to the Glenway location only to be told that the laptop had not been there since we dropped it off months earlier.  We would call looking for the owner, only to be told that he was unavailable but would call us back, which he never did.  When I went to the store and asked him to call us when the laptop was completed, he balked and told me to call him to check on its status.  He couldn't be bothered.  

I had two wedding showers - one in October and one in November - but because I did not have the data back as promised, I couldn't send thank you notes and am coming off as incredibly rude and inconsiderate to those who don't know the situation.  I even posted an apology on Facebook.   And we couldn't give the caterer a head count because we did not have our RSVP list as promised. 

Our wedding passed and we received more presents, which we could not log with the presents from the showers, nor could we send thank you notes, again because they failed to extract the data as promised.  The owner kept dodging our calls and, if we did catch him, mumbled that there was another problem.  The problems ranged from a virus to a bad fan to a bad screen to a bad motherboard.  Every time we drove the 30 minutes out to the Colerain store, the laptop was in pieces on the dirty counter. 

During one visit, we were told the laptop would be ready in 45 minutes, but we did not want to wait, so we checked in the next day, only to see that it was still in pieces.  We were lied to again and told that it was at the Glenway store, when it was at the Colerain store.  None of the employees could ever find our work order or the actual laptop in the store or offer any updates and none seemed to have any background in computers whatsoever. 

We finally got the owner's cell number and would catch him occasionally, but he would continue telling us that another problem cropped up. 

Finally, in one cell phone conversation, he admitted that he had "messed up" and was trying to fix the damage.  At this point, it had been a month since the wedding, for a total of three months when we were told one week.  The customer service was the worst I have ever experienced.  There was never even a simple apology.  Finally, we were told the laptop would be fixed (that was yesterday) and we could come get it. 

About three hours later, we drove again out to Colerain and the laptop was still in pieces and there was another hardware problem that would delay fixing the laptop yet again.  The owner wouldn't look us in the face, say he was sorry, or display any of the most basic customer service skills.  He did admit again that he had messed up, while speaking down to the table top.  Finally, after over three months of waiting (from December to March), we demanded our laptop back, still broken and without the data that we desperately needed and was the whole purpose behind taking it to them.  To his credit, the owner gave us a refund without an argument.  And a busted computer.

This is the most unprofessional, incompetent and sleazy business I have ever dealt with.  Avoid it like the plague.  It you search on other sites, you will see similar stories plastered on the internet.  And the BBB rates it an "F."  And beware - the owner's wife has posted glowing recommendations promoting her own business on other consumer sites, which is against the most basic consumer report policies.

P.S. Randomly, I went to BP and started to chat with the cashier.  I mentioned the laptop fiasco and he laughed and said that Laptop Express had done the same thing to him.  The business is a menace.